The Doctor and Peri arrive on Karfel, which is ruled by an enigmatic
tyrant known as the Borad who wields the power of a space-time tunnel
called the Timelash. Investigating, the Doctor learns that the Timelash
connects Karfel to nineteenth-century Scotland, where a young HG Wells
becomes embroiled in the Borad's schemes. Meanwhile, the Borad stokes
the fires of war with Karfel's neighbours, the Bandrils. He plans to use
the conflict to repopulate Karfel with beings such as himself: a
hideously mutated cross between a human and a reptilian Morlox. And Peri
will be but the first...

Production

Glen McCoy had written episodes of the TV series Angels, as well
as several short stories, when he submitted a storyline featuring the
Daleks to the Doctor Who production office in early 1983. Script
editor Eric Saward rejected McCoy's idea, but told him that he might
reconsider if the proposal was rewritten without the Daleks. McCoy
complied, and the revised storyline was commissioned on May 11th under
the title Timelash. Saward was happy with the result, and McCoy
was asked to script part one on June 24th. At this point,
Timelash was intended to consist of four 25-minute episodes.

One of the serial's conceits was that it would feature a young HG Wells,
a pioneer of science-fiction in the nineteenth century. (Dialogue would
refer to Wells simply as “Herbert” until the end of the
story to preserve the surprise.) McCoy included a number of references
to Wells' oeuvre in Timelash, most obviously the 1895 work The
Time Machine: “Vena” was a corruption of the Eloi name
Weena, the monstrous Morlocks became the Morlox, and of course the
TARDIS itself owed a great debt to the Wells novel. Other inspirations
were 1896's The Island Of Doctor Moreau, which suggested the
hybrid nature of the Borad, and the 1897 novella The Invisible Man
(with the Doctor becoming essentially invisible using the Kontron
crystals).

Glen McCoy included a number of reference to the works of
HG Wells in Timelash

McCoy delivered his script in June. However, it was not until four
months later that McCoy's agents prompted Saward to follow up with their
client. In the interim Saward had apparently developed concerns over the
quality of McCoy's script, as well as the writer's limited television
experience. On the other hand, producer John Nathan-Turner was reluctant
to waste the fees already paid to McCoy, and so the remainder of
Timelash was commissioned on November 23rd. By this time, it had
been decided that Season Twenty-Two would eschew the traditional
25-minute Doctor Who episode length in favour of 45-minute
installments, and so McCoy would have to revise Timelash to suit
this new format.

As the serial developed, Saward made a variety of modifications to McCoy's
scripts. For example, Maylin Tekker underwent no change of heart in
McCoy's original script and was instead murdered by the Borad in the
process of shooting the Doctor. Bizarrely, towards the end of the
serial, McCoy had the Borad reject his intention to mate with Peri,
because he can now make as many clones of himself as he desires; Saward
deleted this entirely. The Bandrils were originally called Gurdels,
while Maylin Renis was referred to as Maylin Vena (suggesting that Vena
was meant to be a family name).

Another hook for McCoy's storyline was the idea that the Doctor had
visited Karfel during his third incarnation. In the original scripts,
Katz's amulet was to contain a reference to Gallifrey, which Peri
identified as the Doctor's home planet in order to gain Sezon's trust.
Saward replaced this with a picture of Jo Grant (with a publicity still
taken during the making of Day Of The
Daleks chosen for the purpose). He took out the scripted
explanation for the destruction of the Bandril missile -- that the
bendalypse was neutralised via contact with the time field of the TARDIS
-- to replace it simply with the Doctor's vague assurance that he will
explain it to Peri later (and off-screen). McCoy had had the action
unfold over the course of several days, but Saward pruned this down to a
matter of hours. And, since Timelash was meant to be a
budget-conscious entry in the production schedule, Saward ensured that
two androids would never be present in a given scene, so that only one
actor would have to be hired for the role.

The director assigned to Serial 6Y (as Timelash had been
designated) was Pennant Roberts, who had last worked on Warriors Of The Deep at the start of the
previous year. Nathan-Turner hoped that pairing the veteran director with
the novice writer would help make up for any of the shortcomings of
McCoy's script, but Roberts was dismayed by what he perceived as a
substandard offering. He insisted that Saward perform further rewrites
on Timelash which the script editor -- then writing Revelation Of The Daleks, the next serial into
production -- agreed to undertake.

Pennant Roberts was concerned about the Doctor and Peri's
antagonism

Of particular concern to Roberts was the antagonistic nature of the Doctor
and Peri's relationship, and the generally mean-spirited attitude of the
Doctor; Saward softened much of their dialogue as a result. Both men
were concerned that episode one would overrun while episode two would be
too short, so Saward attempted to rebalance the scripts to account for
the disparity. Meanwhile, Roberts decided to cast an actress in the role
of Aram, who had been written as male; the director often strove to find
additional roles for women in his productions.

Timelash was recorded in two three-day blocks. The first began on
Tuesday, December 4th, 1984 in BBC Television Centre Studio 4, with work
on the TARDIS and reception chamber sets. The next two days concentrated
on scenes in the inner sanctum and the corridors, plus the detention
room on the 6th. A late change was the decision to represent the Bandril
ambassador by a hand puppet (voiced by Martin Gower, who also played
Councillor Tyheer) as another cost-saving move. The portrait of the
Third Doctor hidden in the inner sanctum was painted by an American fan
artist named Gail Bennett, who had come to the attention of the
production team after creating a series of Doctor Who art cards.
Bennett used an image of Jon Pertwee from Invasion
Of The Dinosaurs for reference.

Roberts' team relocated to TC8 for the second block, which ran from
Wednesday, December 19th. The remaining detention room material was
completed on this day, together with sequences in Herbert's cabin, the
tunnels, the rebel camp and the power vault. The 20th began work in the
Borad's vault, and this continued to the next day. The 21st also saw
taping on the tunnel sets again, as well as in the Timelash itself;
modelwork rounded off the day's agenda.

Even before taping ended, it became apparent to Roberts that Saward's
efforts to correct the lengths of the two episodes had been
unsuccessful: part one was six minutes too long, while part two underran
by four minutes. Roberts suggested simply shifting the cliffhanger back
to the Guardoliers' attack on the rebels, and inserting reaction shots
to imply that Peri had been killed instead of Katz. However,
Nathan-Turner rejected this proposal.

John Nathan-Turner authorised a remount to record
extensions to episode two's TARDIS scenes

Instead, it was decided to move some of the material involving Peri
being taken to the Morlox cave to part two. Minor scene cuts would then
shorten the first installment to its proper length. To prop up the
concluding episode, Nathan-Turner authorised a remount in order to
record extensions to its two TARDIS scenes. Saward wrote the additional
material and David Chandler, who played Herbert, was rehired. The new
footage was taped in TC8 on January 30th, 1985, at the start of the
second studio block for Revelation Of The
Daleks.

Roberts was unhappy with Timelash, blaming both McCoy's script
and the new 45-minute format; it would prove to be his final Doctor
Who work. Roberts went on to direct programmes such as
Dramarama, the mini-series The Snow Spider, and the
telefilm Wycliffe And The Cycle Of Death. A fluent Welsh speaker,
he moved to Cardiff in 1994 and worked on The Sherman Plays.
Roberts died there following a battle with cancer on June 22nd,
2010.